The field of cannabinoid research has gained attention in recent years, particularly in view of the legal use of medical marijuana now approved in several states. However, medical marijuana or cannabinoid (CB) has reached certain limitation. Cannabinoid (CB) drug research also faces a great challenge because the CB1 antagonist drug Rimonabant was recently withdrawn from the European market due to the complications of suicide and depression trends associated with the inhibition of CB receptor subtype CB1. Hence, there is a need to develop CB2-selective drugs lacking psychotropic side effects caused by interaction with CB1.
Multiple Myeloma:
Multiple myeloma (MM) is an uncontrolled differentiation of plasma B cells and the accumulation in the bone marrow. MM accounts for 10% of blood cancers and more than 22,000 new cases are diagnosed yearly in the United States. MM is associated with aggressive clinical manifestations including hematological and metabolic diseases. In addition, bone complications are common in more than 60% of cases such as osteoporosis, bone lesions and fractures. Complicated molecular signaling pathogenesis pathways are involved in the MM disease which accounts for the difficult disease control. MM remains an incurable disease despite the recent discovery of novel proteasome inhibitor (Bortezomib). Further, about 30% of patients with MM never respond to Bortezomib treatment.
Osteoporosis:
Nearly 45 million Americans are facing a major bone health threat, among which 10 million individuals already have osteoporosis (OP), a metabolic bone disease, and the remaining 35 million are at high risk for OP. Current medications used to treat osteoporosis often have severe adverse effects limiting their usage. For example, bisphosphonate drugs have a severe side effect called bisphosphonate-associated osteonecrosis of the jaw via undefined mechanism(s). Also, parathyroid hormone (PTH) is a costly drug and has an FDA black-box warning due to its association with an increased risk of osteosarcoma. Most importantly, osteoporosis is involved in complicated pathways that are still not fully understood.
Novel molecular targets and related chemical probes are needed to overcome the chemoresistance of MM and facilitate novel MM drug discovery. In addition, there is an urgent demand for conducting innovative research to study the underlying mechanisms of OP as well as searching for novel drugs with specific targets to treat OP. The present invention satisfies these needs.